“Paint It Black”- Ciara
Three months later
I stare at the white cinder block walls, humming “Singin’ in The Rain.” I can’t get that damn song out of my head for some reason. There’s nothing in here aside from the rickety cot I’m sitting on. No windows. No sheets. No pens. Nothing. Four walls and a damn cot.
“I know it’s difficult to understand,” Dr. Roberts says.
My gaze veers back to her, and she offers a sympathetic smile. I hate when she does that. I’m not fucking crazy. They all think I am, but I’m not.
“Detective Peralta said when he found you in the shed, you—”
“Fuck him,” I say, gritting my teeth. I stare at the wall, my heart thumping against my ribs. “I hate him.”
And I do. I still haven’t figured this all out. To be honest, it’s about to drive me mad. Actually mad. Edwin is real, and no one will listen to me. But I’ve realized that Edwin must have used Jax to set me up—blame me for his murder spree. And I’d thought Jax wanted me. I’d believed him when he told me I was beautiful. Tears blur my vision, and I rock back and forth on the cot, trying to loosen the damn jacket. I close my eyes, and all I can see is Jax—that face, that smile, those dimples. I can feel his warm lips on mine, and my chest tightens at that bittersweet memory because I know everything he said and did was a fucking lie.
Shaking my head, I try to push away the thought of how he sounded when he came. “Jax told you I was insane. That I killed those girls. Did Jax tell you he fucked me? Just like a dirty little slut. He fucked me and used me.”
Anger ripples through my veins, my skin heating, my temples throbbing as I recall the way he felt buried deep inside me, his hands on my hips. Just the thought of him makes me want to scream. I struggle against the fucking jacket, thrashing from side to side.
“Elizabeth—” Dr. Roberts reaches for that little red button, and I freeze. If she pushes that button, the attending will rush in and jab me with a nice sedative. I don’t want that.
“I’m not crazy. I bet Edwin paid Jax to set me up. You know Jax saw Edwin. He arrested me and left Edwin there with those bodies. He’ll see,” I say, a subtle laugh slipping from my lips. “Edwin will kill him too. Watch.”
And I hope he does. The thought actually makes me quite giddy, because Jax is a bastard. He made me believe there was some decency to humanity, that maybe I could be loved by someone. Love is bullshit. Everything about it is an ugly lie. Edwin was right—sex and money are all men are after.
“Let me know when he kills him, will you?” I smile.
“Elizabeth—”
“My name’s Miranda.” I clench my jaw. “Miranda Cross.”
She inhales, tapping her pen over the edge of her clipboard before she glances at the clock. “No, your name is Elizabeth Ann Mercer.”
I shake my head adamantly, fighting against the tight restraint of the fucking jacket they insist I stay in. “No. It’s not.”
“Yes. You are EA Mercer, New York Times best-selling crime author.”
“No. That’s Edwin.” How he did this, how he managed to set me up like this, I still haven’t figured out. But I can’t really be surprised. He’s a genius.
“Elizabeth—”
“I’m not answering to that. Miranda. I’ll answer to Miranda.”
She casts a stern look in my direction before jotting something on her notepad.
“If I’m not Miranda Cross, explain to me how I worked at the Little Novel Bookstore off Fifth and Main in Atlanta. How I was enrolled in Emory.”
“You were never enrolled in Emory. You attended UNC. And that bookstore only exists in your books, Ms. Mercer.”
“No, I remember. And James. Creepy James…”
“All in your novels.”
I stare blankly at her. How can she be so stupid? Those places are real. I’ve been there. I’ve held those books. A brief memory flashes through my mind…I’m at my desk—no, at Edwin’s desk—a steaming cup of coffee next to me as I type in the name “Little Novel Bookstore.” I see the text pop up on the screen. I feel pride when I type the description of freckle-faced James. I did know a freckle-faced James…
I shake that thought from my head. “Just ask Janine. She’ll clear all of this up.”
Dr. Roberts arches a brow. “I can’t ask Janine, Elizabeth.”
“Well, why not? She’ll tell you how crazy he is. She’s the one who handpicked my manuscript to give to the bastard. She—”
“Janine’s dead.”
I fight the tears building in my eyes. Poor Janine.
“According to the decomposition of her body, she’s been dead for months.”
“That’s not possible,” I whisper.
A sharp twinge shoots through my head, and I close my eyes. For a fleeting moment, I remember the look of horror in Janine’s eyes when that ax came down on her face. I can hear her screaming and wailing. But I push that thought away. It’s not true. It’s not.
“It’s not true…” I mumble.
Dr. Roberts leans over her knees and takes a deep breath. “Elizabeth?”
I don’t like her calling me that.
“Elizabeth, why did you keep her in that shed? All the others you discarded, but Janine… you kept her.”
“I… uh…” Sweat builds beneath the collar of my jacket. I can feel it seeping from the pores above my upper lip. “I…”
Another memory of Janine flashes through my head. Her purple-and-black bloated body is slumped over in the corner of that shed, and I’m pacing the floor, talking to her. Yelling at her about my shitty reviews. No—that is a mirage because that cannot be a memory. Surely…
Dr. Roberts leans down to pick up a manila folder from the floor. She sifts through documents before pulling out a bundle of papers bound together. Exhaling, she flips through the pages, folds several back, then shoves the manuscript in front of my face, her finger hovering over a highlighted paragraph. My eyes scan the text.
It's late evening, and I'm alone at work. The best thing about this bookstore—the Little Novel Bookstore off Fifth and Main—is it's hidden away in a crappy part of town. Hardly anyone ever comes in here. There's only a single small window at the front, and once the sun goes down, the store becomes dim and gloomy, the perfect place for me to lose myself in my books. No people and a nice little reading retreat—well, it’s the perfect place to work, isn't it?
The bell over the front door dings, prompting me to bookmark my spot in Mercer's The Dark Deceit. It's the fourth time I've read it, and it still makes my heart race as much as it did the first time. I peer over the cramped shelves. I see no one, but I hear the soles of their shoes padding over the tile floor.
I nervously clear my throat, pushing a bit higher on my tiptoes. My heart slams against my ribs as I frantically glance around to see who walked in and why they're hiding. I have a habit of letting my imagination get the better of me, as I’m told most writers do—
I glance up from the paper. My stomach kinks and knots, bubbling with anxiety. “Where did you get that?”
“It was on your laptop. The one that was in the shed with you when Detective Peralta found you.”
I swallow hard and close my eyes. This cannot be true.
“From the files saved, it looks like it was around August when you started your novel featuring Miranda Cross, a creative writing student from Emory, and a male author-turned-serial-killer, a fictional man you named Edwin Allen Mercer.”
“No.” I shake my head. “He killed prostitutes. He fucked them… I couldn’t possibly…”
“Exactly. And how did you know that?”
My jaw hangs open as I fumble for a logical answer. Because there must be one. “I… well, I-I mean. I mean…”
Another barrage of images floods my mind. Chastity on the bed, facedown and bound. Me behind her, pulling her hair and fucking her like I was a man. The image skips like an old movie reel, and I see myself in the diner, that greasy, nasty diner, and I am alone, the men across the counter staring and whispering because I’m talking to myself, the night we went to dinner—only one plate of food was delivered because he wasn’t real. He wasn’t real….
“But it’s not the…”
Dr. Roberts takes a deep breath. “Elizabeth, you really have no recollection of these things? Of all the people you killed in that shed? The shed you built specifically to kill in? What do you think we should…”
Her voice fades into the background, just an annoying hum of noise within my cluttered mind. Did I kill all those people? Did I imagine all those things? Can I be that insane yet feel so sane?
I hear the latch of the door behind me open, then I feel fingers brush across my shoulders, my skin prickling.
“She doesn’t understand, Miranda,” Edwin whispers, his warm breath blowing across my neck.
I glance up at him, my pulse hammering in my temples and sending a jolt of adrenaline throughout my body. Slowly, I look back at Dr. Roberts, wondering if she notices him.
“What?” she asks. “What is it?”
I turn to face Edwin again, and he holds his finger over his lips. “Don’t tell her. We have to finish the book first. It’s almost done, but”—he nods toward Dr. Roberts, who is busy making notes—“she’s in the way. She’d never let us finish it, my dear Miranda. And they must read our words.” A devious smile crosses his lips. “They must read all of our wicked little words.”
But I smile even deeper than he does because I know a secret—they did just finish reading. Every. Last. Fucking. Sentence.